


perihelion

by angelicxi



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Family Feels, Light Angst, Mild Sexual Content, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:42:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelicxi/pseuds/angelicxi
Summary: only in your arms am i safe. only in your arms am i loved. only in your arms am i free. — ongoing collection of corriander one-shots.





	1. perihelion

.

.

.

 

something inside him hurt.

 

something else, deeper still, _wanted_ to hurt.

 

it hung between them, that nameless need, so primal — a wildfire meant to destroy and create something anew, something monstrous, something _free_ from the ashes.

 

later, if you were to ask him who moved first, Xander wouldn't know what to say. they either moved in tandem, or the difference was so infinitesimal that it got lost in the space between their bodies and melted there, candlewax stamped on the smooth expanse of her skin, pooling in the ridges of the scars marring his ribs.

 

“Corrin…”

 

a whisper.

  
a prayer.

  
a warning.

 

their first kiss is all teeth: gnawing need and blood, passed back and forth from tongue to tongue, at once an offering and a language that said, _mine, mine, gods, all mine,_ trying to reaffirm the body, trying to change the flimsy nature of reality into something more tangible, into something you could hold on to without danger of tearing it apart.

 

“Brother...”

 

gods, how beautiful she is like that, with his name and his blood on her lips.

 

wordlessly, he drags his hand down the column of her throat, relishing in the way her pulse spikes, pressing up into the pads of his fingers. her breath hitches, a shiver passing through her limbic system like sound does through the cord of a violin.

 

he counts down the places where a single nick would be enough to drain her of life and closes his eyes.

 

 _These are the hands of a killer,_ he thinks, and it rings hollow between the bones of his temples because it's true. not a killer by choice, no, but a killer all the same.

 

Corrin takes his hands into her own and passes his touch downward still, stilling them above the clasps of her jacket.

 

“Undo me.”

 

so he does.

 

he peels back her clothes and is reminded of a blossoming flower; his hands speak for him, scrying the things he dares not name across her exposed flesh, painting her rose and tainting her into a mold closer to his own image.

 

 _Such a sin,_ he thinks. _All these hands have ever done was one. I ought to be smote by whatever lies above._

 

and yet...

 

and yet, he is helpless in front of his own desire, so clearly mirrored in her eyes.

 

there, underneath his hands, every fiber of her being responding to that primal, magnetic pull that draws two people together and binds them into something almost whole, she is a vision in red. everything in him coils, doubles over with a whimper.

 

_How am I supposed to resist?_

 

“Corrin, sister, I...”

 

her finger presses down on his mouth, smearing the blood that had mingled on his lips, the proof and the means of a pact unknowingly yet willingly signed.

 

“Ssh. Don't say anything. _Don't._ ”

 

soft, so soft, the whole of her, breaking down his walls and crumbling everything he stands for.

 

he catches her mouth with his again and swears he can feel the sun, and god, and the whole wide world press against his closed eyelids.

 

it feels like dying.

  
it feels like being alive.

 

how she sears him, this woman he doesn't deserve and whom, against all odds, seems to want him.

 

he cups her face in his hands and thinks, _tonight I am not a killer._ _Tonight I am a slave, a lover, a speck of dust at the mercy of your breath._

 

how sweet that kiss; how cruel. how gentle the hands curving around the nape of his neck, stripping him of clothes and pretense, nails dragging strings down the dip of his spine and making a puppet out of him.

 

_Moon and tide. Torrent and leaves. Death, and the final birdsong. Gods and —_

 

here his thoughts are clipped short, coherence falling into a cacophony of sounds that drum out her name and echo in whispers throughout his veins, making a home out of the muddy soil inside his lungs.

 

time passes in a haze, melancholy-pink tinged violet-and-gold at the edges, his world reduced to the pale body underneath his own: sky from her ribs and earth in the valley between, spread out between her thighs, stars and gods and flame everywhere else, setting him alight.

 

“Brother... _oh, brother..._ ”

 

how undone he is, then, a frayed rope tugged to pieces; and how little he minds the destruction. everything is her and, for once, that is enough.

 

for once, he is content.

 

 _Perhaps,_ he thinks, later, when their limbs are knit together in a comfortable tangle and her collarbones bear the marks of his teeth, _it would be alright...to allow myself this moment. Perhaps,_ he thinks, rubbing circles into the small of her back and feeling himself smile at the sigh she gives through her slumber, tucking herself ever-closer to his chest, _just perhaps, we'll be alright._

 

.

.

.

 

* * *

 

_fin._


	2. madrugada

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reflections: past, present, future. — or: Xander can't sleep, again, and so the sky keeps him company.

.

.

.

 

different times of the same day come with different flavors: midday has its’ golden splendor, its’ honeyed air that says, _sit under the sun and contemplate how lucky you are to breathe me in_ ; afternoons slip in afterward like a balm, aloe ointment on the sears on your soul, pulling you close under the shade of cloud and trees and comforting you; and then evening comes, the ghosts of fading time breathing life into the stars.

 

this is a time for business conducted with knife-sharp smiles and mingling in the endless crowd of silk-clad figures — a time when crowns grow heavier and gold weighs thrice the feather of lead. it is a weary time, outside of the rare occasions one can slip away and fade into the stone, smoke on the castle walls, and just _be_.

 

then midnight strikes, and the witching hour begins, with its’ silver glamours that promise you everything you’ve ever wanted and _more_ , only a touch out of reach.

 

(and sometimes, only sometimes, he allows himself to reach out and _touch_. the guilt swallows him whole; but by god, how sweet is the taste of forbidden fruit. so sweet no amount of guilt can hold off the hunger.)

 

that magic fades with rooster song, with the gulls crying off in the distance —

 

and suddenly he is alone with only the sun bleeding on the distant horizon and his thoughts, those gnawing things that bite at his bones like a vice.

 

reality has such a thinness to it, then; half a dream he can hardly bring himself to believe in.

 

Xander turns, and looks at the woman sleeping beside him, body curled like a wing to fit into his side.

 

_So beautiful. My missing rib. My sister. My queen._

 

_My doom._

 

he tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear and thinks: _I am not worthy._

 

gently, ever so gently, he lifts from the bed and stalks off to the balcony. in the corner of the sky, Venus twinkles quietly, with mirth; a kind keeper of secrets.

 

“Don’t laugh at me,” Xander finds himself murmuring; “You must’ve been in love once, too. All stars were. That’s why they’re burning now.”

 

a childish myth, but one dear to him for reasons he’d rather not explore.

 

_Will the gods make a star of me, too? One day, after…_

 

it wouldn’t be so bad. especially if he will pass before her; it’d be a mercy, then. he could still keep watch over her sleeping form.

 

he looks down at this hands, counts the callouses running down his fingertips. so many years of swords.

 

so many years of being a weapon.

 

_That’d be fitting penance. Orbiting her, perpetually out of reach. Maybe it’d wash me clean of some of this blood. Maybe it’d save our souls._

 

he was a kinslayer and a kingslayer both; and he didn’t know what weighted harder — patricide or regicide? Garon hadn’t been very good at either of them, but blood was blood and it was _his_ blade that had spilled it open from the old man’s veins. no matter how deserved it had been, murder was murder.

 

_Sin. And it wasn’t my first or last, either._

 

the distant horizon bleeds a darker red; a storm is brewing, somewhere far over the hills. soon there’ll be thunder, and rain will mask the face of the sun.

 

“Indoor weather,” he hums to himself. rain made him drowsy, but Corrin became strangely energetic. “Perhaps we’ll play cards. Or chess. What do you think?”

 

the morning star only twinkles.

 

“Ah, sleep. That wouldn’t be so bad, either...”

 

he gets very little of it, these days — sleep.

 

people often say it is a lot like dying, but Xander begs to differ. sleep brings with it dreams; death only comes with silence. some days, he thinks he’d rather have that than the nightmares that plague most of his moments at rest.

 

“Xander…?”

 

Corrin’s sleep-laden voice wafts in, tearing cleanly through the spidersilk that’d begun to lay a web over his eyes and cover them, replaying that fateful day on the back of his eyelids.

 

“In here, little bird.”

 

her form appears in the doorway, a smudge of white shining bright against the shadows.

 

_How fitting._

 

“What’re you doing up so early?” she paws at her eyes, fighting the wings of sweet Morpheus, and her whole posture speaks of worry. “Dreams again?”

 

“Just insomnia,” he assures, drawing her in and close to his body to shield her from the early April wind. he smooths a hand down her tousled hair and breathes. “Nothing for you to worry over.”

 

her hands knot at his waist, almost habitual. “If you say so,” she says, clearly disbelieving — but she knows better than to try and argue. he could have a limb torn off and still he would insist he is fine.

 

“Mm.”

 

“I heard you talking,” she says against his chest.

 

“Ah, that. I was saying hello to my friend,” he says, and smiles, rather bashful. he gestures to the place where Venus twinkles cheerfully, the only star to keep its’ brilliance even as the sun rises.

 

Corrin smiles, fondness in the corners of her mouth.

 

“Hello there,” she says, turning to look at the aster. “Thank you for looking after my brother in my absence.” she leans up to press a kiss to his jaw. “He can be quite a handful.”

 

“My apologies, sweet sister.”

 

“Mm. Why don’t I believe you when you say that, I wonder?”

 

“Because you know I’m likely to do it again.”

 

she pats his cheek. “Smart boy.”

 

“I do need to keep up with a smart lady, after all,” he says, and twists his face to press a kiss to the pulse beating in her wrist.

 

“Cheesy.”

 

“You like it, though.”

 

“For some strange reason,” she acquiesces with a soft laugh. “Probably just because I like you a lot.”

 

if he’d say his heart didn’t beat faster at that, he’d be lying.

 

“Tease,” he murmurs.

 

she only smiles a little wider.

 

“Come back to bed, brother dear,” she says, and draws his hand into her small palms, fingertips first. “You can think about heavy things another time, and your friend will still be here tomorrow, and the day after that. But now it’s cold, and the bed feels empty without you. Besides...” she says, and presses his hand to the slight bulge of her stomach, “this little one misses you, too.”

 

so he follows.

 

their matrimonial bed is a safe haven, away from the evils of the world. there, between the pillows, burrowed deep beneath the heavy winter quilts, his armor and weapons can come down and fall to the floor; because there, in her lilac-scented embrace, all of him is accepted as-is — every scar, every blemish, every sin and ghost that haunt him.

 

“I love you,” Corrin whispers, voice grown heavy with sleep. she curls into his side again, head cushioned on his bicep. she presses a kiss to his temples and his lips and draws his hand to her again, the gold of their wedding bands growing warm under her touch. “This little one, too,” she whispers, softer still, laying his palm open and flat on her lower abdomen, where their son is growing day by day.

 

and for once, Xander allows himself to believe it, even if the reality lapping at the foot of the bed and curling around them still feels thin around the edges.

 

.

.

.

 

* * *

 

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NB: I am perfectly aware canon-wise it's Corrin that kills Garon but to me it's more fitting for Xander to do it himself so that's what I rolled with. (:3｣∠)_


	3. manna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> relieve her, the way only you know how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am much better at writing dynamic scenes. Exercises like this — slow, drawn-out to the point of being almost static — are excellent for me. I decided un-perversify a surprisingly common kink, just for the occasion.

.

.

.

 

“Does it hurt?”

 

she’s laying on her side, cushioned high on a flurry of pillows, the smile in her eyes hanging stars from her lashes at every blink. a small, dainty hand supports her chin; she’s peering over the edge of the cradle, love-struck for the bundle of life sleeping soundly on goose feathers.

 

 _So tiny,_ she’d say whenever his small fingers caught hers in a fist. _So tiny, dear little heart._ and then she’d sing, that nameless, old lullaby that stood to her as sole inheritance of the old kingdom.

 

at the sound of his voice, she turns, and moonlight hair falls off the curve of her shoulder, pooling on the sheets; making him forget how to breathe for a moment.

 

her brows ply, inquisitive.

 

“Hm?”

 

tentative, he reaches out and thumbs the thin skin of her breast. it’s hot to the touch — far hotter than it should be, far hotter than the rest of her. he fears fevers; they took so much from him, in the past.

 

“This.”

 

“Ah.” she covers his hand with hers, turns in the circle of his arms to tuck her body close to his, breath melting into the skin of his sternum, seeping into the bone below it. he thinks of waves ashore and a thousand more lines of poetry and forgets them all as soon as they form; the shape of her is overwhelming, even now. “A little,” she admits.

 

he hums, low in the throat, thumbing circles into the small of her back. “Should I call for a maid?”

 

“It’s late,” she says. “I’ll ask them for a pump, tomorrow.”

 

“Still...”

 

she presses a kiss to the side of his throat. “I’m fine, really. You worry too much.”

 

“Can you blame me?” he says, and pouts. “It’s all new to me.”

 

“To me, too,” she retorts. “Still,” she says, bringing a hand to her chest, “this is better than the alternative. I was so scared I’d always be dry, the first few days.”

 

 _I was, too,_ he thinks, and doesn’t say; at the time, it scared him more to think of her face, should that fear come true — he knew that she’d be heartbroken by it.

 

they stay like that, for a while, nested in an embrace; and then a thought comes to him.

 

slowly, he moves one of his hands from her waist; trails the fingers up on the plains of her stomach until his palm is resting flat around her breast, cupping it.

 

“Then...” he says, and wonders when’d his breath become this shallow, “would you allow me…?”

 

“Hm...?” a puzzled look fills those wide eyes; and then, understanding. blood climbs high in her cheeks, dusting the apples of them a faint rosé. “...oh.” her mouth curls around the sound, soft and round. she considers, hovering over the thought with her lip between her teeth. “I...suppose I could.”

 

he moves, rolling them over with the fluidity of water in a stream; for things like these, his body is all sinew.

 

when he hooks his fingers through the straps, her slip falls off easy, bunching up in the dips of her hipbone – and despite himself, he shivers.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

she simply threads her fingers through his hair, pressing him closer.

 

he cups her breasts in his hands — and even after all this time, he has to marvel at how perfectly they fit in his palms, as if their bodies had been fashioned for one another — and works his way up her midsection with a slow, wet trail of kisses.

 

when his teeth graze her nipple, she moans out his name.

 

it’s almost an undoing.

 

almost.

 

_This is for her. Not for me — all for her._

 

and yet restraint doesn’t come without war; his spine tightens, arching high.

 

slowly, so slowly, he rolls it around in his mouth with gentle flicks of the tongue, coaxing the milk out as gently as he’s able. the taste of it surprises him; the distinct flavor of all milk, wrapped up in nuances of almonds and vanilla and _something_ that is all hers, is far less stranger than he’d thought it be.

 

“Tell me if I hurt you,” he says between suckles; “tell me when to stop.”

 

her arms tighten around him, the relief in her expression underlaced by something far more dangerous.

 

“I will,” she whispers, and somehow it sounds like a threat dancing within a promise.

 

the shivers rolling down his spine begin to taste and feel a lot like fire.

.

.

.

 

* * *

  

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god save my soul, i didn't even have to google "how does human breast milk taste?" for this.


	4. reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we are scarcely aware of the icon our shoulders paint in the eyes of our beholder. — or, Xander and Corrin, and what they think about one another.

.

.

.

 

It knocks the breath out of your lungs: this image of her, hyaline in the sunlight.

 

The edges of her are aflame — carnelian with the blood coursing inside, translucent at the edges where the sun presses its’ lips to her skin. She melts into it, body become diaphanous and soft, dissipating all semblance of corporeality. You are no longer sure where one begins and the other ends, and you think, _T_ _his suits her._

 

It is beatific: the impression of a goddess, drawn on stained glass. It fills you with awe.

 

It fills you with shame, too.

 

She is at once your greatest grief and greatest joy; the source of your courage, the source of your fears, your blessing and your sin.

 

Your sister.

 

Your wife.

 

 _To think these hands have tainted you,_ you think, and it dies unspoken on your lips, bunched up in the shape of her name.

 

You may never bring yourself to burden her with the weight of your turmoil, just as you’ll never be able to forgive yourself for it or for its’ truth.

 

Even so — when her hands curl around yours, the feeling of a puzzle’s pieces falling into place shakes even the darkest of meditations off of your shoulders.

 

For this, you are grateful.

 

You do not know whether loving her is selfish or not; but loving her with your head full of nothing but thoughts of taint is unfair. Cruel, even, and she deserves so much better, so much more than that.

 

 _She deserves more than even this,_ you think, yet still you let her pull you close. She listens to the rise and fall of your heart, the tide of you lulled to gentleness in the safe harbor of her arms, and you watch as a smile more radiant than the sun itself blossoms across her lips.

 

“It’s such a beautiful rhythm,” she murmurs, nuzzling closer; the rest of the sentence is lost somewhere in the folds of your shirt.

 

Your bury your nose in the crown of her head, breathing deeply. “Is it?”

 

“Mhm.”

 

The song of you is sung for her and only her; such praise elates you.

 

“I’m glad.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It grounds you; the sight of him like this, wrestling with his shadows.

 

You’re pulled back into the moment, and then back further — your nose is filled at once with the sweetness of roses and you remember the Tower; how kind he had been, the gentleness of his hands free of ulterior motive. It had made all the difference.

 

It had meant the world.

 

Even as the years and the wars raged on and beat his body into a calloused, titanium exterior, you’ve always known how soft the core of him had stayed.

 

_He is unchanged, even if he does not realize it._

 

The way his shoulders arch downward fills you with such unspeakable sadness.

 

In your mind’s eye, you strip him down bare; the map of his scars is etched into your memory as clearly as it is etched onto his skin. You have traced it with your fingers countless times, until you learned it better than your own.

 

_Oh, brother, dear brother. How hard I wish you wouldn’t blame yourselves for them._

 

You’d smooth them over, if you could; but you know that no matter how kind your touch is, it cannot bring about miracles. He will always think of them as his own fault, his own sin. Your lips ebb in a sad smile, trembling.

 

 _I was too cowardly. I hesitated too much. I didn’t know better. That’s what he’s always telling himself, isn’t it? Oh, beloved._ _This will cave you in, if you will let it._

 

The weight of his crown roots glass in his shoulders; you envision wings growing out of him instead, bone as thick as oak branches and feathers whiter than snow.

 

_Whiter than even your sorrows._

 

Your hands reach out and find his shoulders of their own accord.

 

It’s such a simple gesture; the weight of you isn’t much, nor is the warmth — but his body responds instantly, curving upwards into your open palms.

 

You feel your resolve harden.

 

“Corrin?”

 

His voice is the wind; unsteady, uncertain. He searches your face through a veil of tears, trying to anchor himself out of the dark phantasm of your shared, shattered past.

 

“I’m here, brother.”

 

_I’ll always be here._

 

.

.

.

 

* * *

 

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was originally written as part of a fanzine. what you see here is the unabridged version of the published piece; i was asked to remove the more...questionable appelatifs. i hope you enjoy~ :)


	5. eye of the storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh, the things we do in the shadows.

.

.

.

 

outside the dark pane of the windows, thunder roars; rolling through the clouds in tumultuous waves, an erratic heartbeat to an open-mouthed, breathing storm.

 

“Quite a racket, isn’t it?”

 

a kiss, pressed and concealed into the dip of a pale shoulder, lips shaped as a question.

 

Corrin smiles. “Rather romantic, though, wouldn’t you agree?”

 

quietly: “I suppose,” though what holds his attention is no longer the storm.

 

candlelight flickers, casting strange shadows in a dance across the bare expanse of her skin, and he wonders — _What does the ephemeral taste like?_ each whisper of the flame brings new designs and queerer patterns to the matrix, and the momentum garners magic, questions.

 

_Is night a candied delight?_

 

his mouth curls around the underside of her left breast, almost independent of his conscious will; and when she lets out a mirth-ladden squeal, he concludes that here, at least, darkness is so very sweet indeed.

 

“Xander...” she warns, her whole face drawn up in a contagious smile.

 

“Mm?”

 

her fingers smooth over the side of his throat, thumb cupping his jawline.

 

“Kiss me,” she says, simply, ravenously; and so, he does.

 

there is so much hunger in it; in her teeth and the lining of her mouth and in the warring of their tongues. so much desire.

 

so much _ache_.

 

his heartbeat grows so loud that the blood of it drowns out the storm entirely; and in the moment there is only them, the contours of their shapes blurred together at the edges, until his own body fades and all that is left is her warmth — lips and hands and the lovely, lovely rise and fall of her chest as she breathes.

 

he thinks: _Heavens forgive me._

 

he needs no other church to worship at beside her body.

 

they come apart to rest and he pulls her to him, seating her on his thighs. only a little foreplay, and he’s already so hard; “You don’t play fair games, do you, lover?”

 

playfully: “Do _you_?”

 

she grinds against his length, the warmth of her searing hot.

 

he whimpers; _God, so **wet**_.

 

and just like that, fights like these between the two of them are always forfeit long before they even properly begin; not that he’d want to win one, either way. it’s so much more _fun_ like this. eating her cunt raw is far from a penalty game — if anything, it’s a reward.

 

she slides down with a hiss, then, tantalizingly slow; and white-hot stars light up the back of his closed eyelids.

 

making love to her is such saccharine agony, sometimes.

 

“Corrin...”

 

how much her name sounds like a prayer when hushed on his lips.

 

“I’m right here,” she says, gasping into the crook of his throat. her teeth graze his skin in an open-mouthed kiss, and they settle into a slow-burning rhythm.

 

“Xander?”

 

“Hm?”

 

softly, she presses a fluttering kiss to the bridge of his nose.

 

“I love you too, you know.”

 

.

.

.

 

* * *

 

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly, I wanted this to be longer, but I am just coming (heh) out of a holiday-induced creative hangover. bear with me pls.


	6. chiaroscuro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> evening prayer, but not the way you'd think — or is it?

.

.

.

 

light flickers, strange and arcane; the flame contorting its’ body into capricious shapes, breathing the night alive with changing shadow.

 

she mounts him in the half-dark, pale body a cut piece of the moon.

 

he runs his mouth on the plains of her torso, lips and teeth and too-hot tongue on the aching buds of her nipples, savoring every whimper the motion elicits. she grinds against his length, languid and deliberate, hands twisting in the hair at his nape.

 

“Xander...”

 

it’s the perfect crime, really — and nobody knows better how to kill him than she.

 

“Tell me what you want,” he says, letting the rough skin of his hands drag down the length of her back to settle on her tailbone. “Tell me _exactly_ what you want me to do to you, dove.”

 

her eyes glaze over, breath become heavy. she smiles.

 

“Eat me out.”

 

he leans back until he’s lain down fully on the mattress, body turned into altar at the service of his goddess; “Come,” he beckons.

 

the surprise in her eyes is apparent, but so is the excitement. they have never really tried this sort of thing.

 

she crawls over him, pressing kisses to the line of his sternum as she goes. he feels his erection turn febrile — but at this point, he rather likes the pain. her hair cascades around him in a halo of quaint silver-white, and he twirls a strand around his finger, bringing it to his lips.

 

“Are you sure?” she asks. “It might be awkward.”

 

“We won’t know unless we try,” he says. his voice is hoarse; low with the longing of love-lust.

 

she settles into place, knees on either side of his head, and calloused fingers trace the curve of her thighs — one hand curls upward, splaying wide over the ribs to cup the side of her waist, thumb nibbling circles in the underside of a bare breast; the other steadies her, firm on the hip.

 

he sears his tongue to the slit of her sex, and feels electric undercurrent shiver down her spine.

 

“A-ah…ah…!”

 

asymmetrical breathing, leaving that sweet, red-bruised mouth at irregular intervals. his tongue circles inside her and over her, delighting in the moans the motion elicits, in the way the walls of her spasm in tempo to their synchronized heartbeat. her spine arches; and in the blind light the column of it is half of Eden’s gate.

 

“Xander, I...”

 

she’s close — he can feel it in the way her sex spasms under his tongue.

 

“It’s alright,” he whispers, dragging his teeth over her clit in slow back-and-forth shifts. “Come for me, dove.”

 

and so, she does; toes curling back into the sheets to the point of pain, vision drenched in white-hot stars, hands tugging helplessly at her own chest, clawing the flesh.

 

he drinks in her orgasm, watching the way her body blossoms from below — dilated veins making the blood surface across her skin in a flush of rosé. _Just like champagne._ he thinks of faraway seas and dawns far gentler than the one sinking into her bones from just his tongue, but all of them pale in comparison to the splendor of her exposed throat.

 

he presses a kiss to the inside of her thigh; and then another, and another, and another, each of them an _I love you_ words are far too flimsy to convey.

 

.

.

.

 

* * *

 

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be honest I planned to take a small sabbath, but this was a request I couldn't bring myself to deny...enjoy!


	7. silent night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> on the holiest of nights, a moment of peace.

.

.

.

 

the Nohrian plains slept deeply, at once illuminated and shadowed by the moon’s radiant crescent.

 

hearth fire was kept high on nights like these; nights where the snow blanketed the world, shrouding it in perfect silence. it chased away the chill that crept inside your marrow like thorns on a vine and kept away the ringing echoes of dark thoughts. these were good nights for wild game stew and whispers of the future – bad days to fight and to chase joy away from one’s doorstep.

 

the short days made people melancholic; and beneath the crown of stars, hearts were that much easier to unveil. people bled out their true colors, and in the darkness, sought out one another. winter made healing easier, if you made your peace with it.

 

 _That’s right,_ Corrin thinks to herself, surveying the valleys below the castle with a tender eye; _this is a healing land._

 

“You’ll catch a cold,” Xander murmurs, fitting himself around her body. “Come back inside. The kids are finally asleep, and the maids brought up sorbet.”

 

she thinks about teasing him, but his voice is so very heavy with sleep. “Alright,” she says, turning around in his arms and pressing a kiss on the underside of his chin. “Lead the way.”

 

“It’s tangerine,” he says, almost as an afterthought. effortlessly, he picks her up in a bridal hold. “The sorbet, I mean. Winter tangerine.”

 

“Mm. Sounds lovely.”

 

gingerly, he deposits her on an armchair. “Yeah,” he says, and the way he’s looking at her makes her think he isn’t really talking about the dessert, “it is.”

 

they snack in silence, sharing the same spoon. Siegbert sleeps on their bed, coiled around his little brother like a dutiful soldier; and Xander has a hard time glancing away from them.

 

 _Ah,_ she thinks; _this, too, is a healing land._

 

she says nothing, content to tuck the thought into the corners of a smile.

 

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* * *

 

_**fin.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's February. yet I feel that we need a little more wholesomeness in the erotic mess this collection has become, so I'm back-logging a Christmas drabble as part of today's double update.


	8. sordid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he's got enough guilt to start a new religion. — or, Xander rides solo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sad wanks? sad wanks.

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a trembling movement; upwards and upwards, curling around the bruised flesh at the top, gripping with a strangely tender vice. the callouses on his hand are a far cry from the softness of her palms, and yet it is so painfully easy to imagine her kneeling between his legs with an inquisitive expression.

 

 _I am a failure,_ he thinks, and pulls harder. _As a knight, as a brother, as a human being._

 

the hand slips down with a sharp, shaky exhale.

 

he hadn’t meant for this to happen; he really hadn’t. he had been trying so hard to stifle these thoughts and the feelings and hormones that went behind them, but then during dinner the bodice of her her dress had been pulled so tight, he thought his knees would give out under him.

 

“So cruel,” he mutters to the empty room, half a sob. “She’s so cruel.”

 

_Camilla, too. I bet she was the one to commission it._

 

Xander closes his eyes and draws breath, willing it all forgotten — yet the image of her persists: breasts pushed up, almost overspilling, and he finds that he is swollen to the point of pain. he caves. there’ll be room for guilt and shame later, too; for now, his not-so-little problem takes precedence.

 

he twists his free hand in the sheets, trying to gain grounding with a white-knuckled hold.

 

against the backdrop of his closed eyelids, he paints.

 

her soft body, hyaline in midday light, splayed out on velvet covers that feel rough compared to her skin; dressed just enough to be perverse, drawing him in with a curl of her fingers. illuminated like this, she is close to an impression of the divine.

 

he never imagines fucking her in the night, if he can help it. the fantasy gets too twisted, too rough, too close to a kind of raw humanity that he craves more than he cares to admit, for it to be even remotely comfortable.

 

“Come closer, brother,” the phantasm says, in his sister’s voice and with her laughing eyes; “help me with these stockings, won’t you?”

 

he is all too happy to oblige.

 

in the realm of dreams, he pulls the lace from her thigh by the teeth, dragging down in a languorous line; in that of living men, he tugs at himself with bruising force, hissing.

 

 _This is sin,_ he tells himself, and thinks of pulling down the flimsy veil of a nightdress from her shoulders. it bunches up around her waist in a puddle of fabric and she lets him graze his lips on the underside of her breasts, fisting her small hands in his hair. a thousand butterfly kisses pass between them in silence before he pushes her down gently and she whispers, _I’m so wet, brother._

 

it almost unravels him. shaking, he kneels before her; and his illusory self tastes her, watching transfixed as she rolls the small bud of a nipple to the tempo of his tongue on her clit, while his true self tastes bitter almonds as he comes with a shudder.

 

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* * *

 

_**fin.** _


End file.
